Basecoin is a stable coin (not volatile cryptocurrency) whose money supply algorithmically contracts and expands based on market demand and a decentralized Consumer Price Index. What this means in english is that this token is effectively managed by a robot central bank free from the political interference that real central banks face. We still have not come across a stable coin that can act as an everyday usable cryptocurrency, but doesn’t wind up in fiascos involving the legality of the token (see Tether articles). If the project works as intentioned, it could change modern currency markets. One could reasonably pay wages in basecoin, or use basecoin to more effectively trade digital assets, but the best use case of the basecoin would be for the digital currency to alleviate the inflation madness occurring in countries like Venezuela or Zimbabwe.
This system holds a lot of advantages even over gold’s natural system of being mined out of the ground. Gold’s mining is effectively random and not dictated by any perfect computer algorithm, and is consequently much more unpredictable in its output at any given moment. If a huge supply of gold is serendipitously found somewhere, it could theoretically dramatically inflate the rate at which gold enters the existing supply, and consequently cause an unanticipated decrease in the unit price of gold.
It’s almost 10 years into the introduction of the first virtual currency, the Bitcoin and yet, neither the Govt in India nor the RBI have been able to provide a proper regulatory environment, for the crypto currencies to thrive in India. There are many reasons cited: National Security, Threat to convention currency and unregulated investment, causing severe loss to various investors, who are not well versed in these new avenues of investment.
The futures contracts for bitcoin were launched by both the CME Group and Cboe last December as interest in the cryptocurrency rose and as institutional investors sought a method to hedge against their risk. The first bitcoin futures contract was launched by the Cboe and trading began on Dec. 10 as XBT, which is a U.S. dollar-denominated, cash-settled futures contract based on the auction price of bitcoin on the Gemini digital currency exchange.
Under the Bretton Woods system, numerous foreign governments held US dollars as an indirect and more convenient method of holding gold, as US dollars were supposedly directly exchangeable at a fixed rate for gold. However, by 1966, gold reserves actually held by the US were already pitifully low, with only $13.2 billion worth of gold being held by the government.
Because of this, I actually personally keep my cryptocurrency distributed in several reasonably safe baskets. For instance, despite Coinbase being an exchange that fundamentally requires some trust, they are more trustworthy than almost any other exchange on a technical level (their customer service, however, leaves something to be desired), and it is virtually impossible for their coins to be hacked to any significant degree, and all those at risk of being hacked are fully insured. As a consequence, I leave some of my coins with them, merely because in many ways, I trust their technical security measures more than I trust my own. Before GBTC started trading at such an absurd premium, I also kept some of my funds with them, both in part to diversify across multiple platforms to reduce the risk of losing all my coins with one bad black swan event, and also because it was the only immediately easy way to put some of my retirement funds into bitcoin, short of creating a self directed IRA.
Ripple – Ripple is more in the nature of a payment protocol created and developed by a company named Ripple, which is based on the concept of Real time Gross Settlement. It was initially released in the year 2012. Also known as the corporate cousin of bitcoin, ripple is another cryptocurrency which saw sudden uptick in August. It shot from levels of 16 cents to 30 cents within a span of 24 hours on August 23. Since then, it has retreated back to levels of 20 cents.
The difficulty is knowing when the trend has changed, as such, I hedge altcoins and BTC against each other and make changes in my portfolio when a change in the trend becomes more obvious. When BTC dominance is falling, altcoins tend to perform better and vice versa, but this is not always the case, when they rise together, my gut instinct tells me that significant volumes of new capital are entering the market.
One prerequisite of rebalancing is that the market should still be in an uptrend. When there are cracks appearing in the market after a big run up and media outlets are starting to spread FUD, it’s probably a good idea to start taking profits, which will be described in the following section. Use your predetermined portfolio balances for this. The above shown pie charts work very well, as they visually display your balance.

It sounds incredible, but this is real life. The government threatened to fine anyone caught possessing gold in violation of this order $10,000 ($185,000 today) and throw them in jail for up to ten years. A famous case involved one Frederick Barber Campbell, who had on deposit at Chase Bank over 5,000 ounces of gold (worth over $6 million today), and attempted to withdraw the gold that he rightfully owned. Chase refused to allow him to do so, so he decided to sue Chase for depriving him of his assets.

We believe innovation in open source protocols will be faster and more like an evolutionary system, as developers fork, combine and extend protocol code with minimal friction. In fact, we believe forking will be continuous and native to this process and believe it is a net positive for the industry, though it does introduce complexities for investors.

This is just my 0.02$, as always, I can be completely wrong, and I maintain the right to contradict myself in the future. Also, for the record, this article references only my opinion and is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice if you want to. And, remember, always do your own research (DYOR).

The moment you look at the amount of support Tron has been receiving lately, you immediately realize it’s not just yet another blockchain-based platform. Tron’s technology aims to deploy world’s largest FREE content entertainment system. The platform allows anyone to store and own data, and to freely publish their content. Its app “Peiwo” already gathers 10 million enthusiasts and is on the road to become the world’s first TRON-compatible entertainment app. This technology revolves around the following ideology: All contributions on the network should be of equal quantitative value, the Internet should be decentralized, and data creators should have the absolute ownership of the data. It’s important to realise though that Tron has been pushed like hell by an ambitious marketing department… I have not yet decided if this is a cryptocurrency which will survive but, for a one year hold, it seems a safe bet.
Hey Jhon, I haven’t found a crypto yet that is really related to my hobbies – Crossfit and backpacking – but I would actually advise steering clear of investing in things linked too closely to what you’re passionate about; whilst insider knowledge of an industry is really valuable, it’s important to trade without emotion and if your trading a coin that is linked to a great love of yours, that becomes harder.
On June 26, the SEC revealed a proposal to ease the approval process and “modernize the regulatory framework for exchange-traded funds.” Most notably, the proposal stated that the “cost and delay of obtaining an exemptive order” during application would be eliminated, lowering the market barrier to entry for innovative new ETFs backed by cryptocurrencies.

This article is a very high level introduction to the Grayscale Bitcoin Investment Trust (OTCQX:GBTC). If you are unsure about what Bitcoin (BTC-USD) is, then you can start by reading some of my articles on the subject. Alternatively, if you're a visual learner there are many great videos that can get you up to a basic level of understanding. Let's begin.

Like any speculative investment, buying bitcoin at sky-high valuations is risky business. If you’re asking, “Is it smart to invest in bitcoin?” you might do well to heed this advice from billionaire investor Mark Cuban, who told MONEY, “It’s still very much a gamble.” You need to know that your bitcoin investment might lose money. If you’re not prepared to face that prospect, bitcoin investment might not be for you.
Yet there's reason to doubt that cryptocurrency frenzy will return. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America (BAC) and Citigroup (C) — Ma Bell in Warner's analogy — banned credit-card purchases of cryptocurrencies. Meanwhile, the SEC and foreign governments have cracked down on initial coin offerings. And lately, Alphabet (GOOGL)-unit Google, Facebook (FB) and Twitter (TWTR) have banned cryptocurrency ads.
At Crypto Investing Insider, our passion is trading and our goal is for every member to be successful. We search through hundreds of cryptocurrencies every month and only select a few to move on. We look for innovation, joint ventures, mass adoption and provide in depth technical analysis. We look for coins that have long term potential, but we waste no time selling on spikes, locking in profits, and adding more coins to our portfolio without having to add any more capital.
What makes Leo Tolstoy’s magnum opus unusual is that he disputed the invasion of Russia being caused by Napoleon, or that the series of conflicts during this period were called the Napoleonic Wars. He argues that doing so makes it easy to disregard the untold millions of people who also participated in the conflict as little more than pawns on a chessboard.

The purpose of this cryptocurrency portfolio is to outperform the overall market in market downturns, whilst still enjoying the significant upside of the market. TC expects this portfolio to significantly outperform assets such as stocks and shares in a bull market. It has been constructed to add flexibility for the future. For example, you could add additional positions or participate in ICOs by converting some Bitcoin or Ethereum holdings.

Pro Tip:If you want to invest, but aren’t keen on using your own funds, consider utilizing accrued interest on a savings account to invest. Compare savings accounts and their interest rates. If you put a lot of money into savings every year, you could fund a sizable investment with just the money the bank pays you in interest. It eliminates your personal risk and maximizes your chances of a return.

With this in mind, bitcoin can arguably be seen as the purest form of money, as its value is entirely predicated on trust in it, and nothing else. It can arguably also be seen as the most trustworthy of currencies, as it was bespoke made by intentional design to exhibit all the best elements of historically trustworthy currencies (e.g. gold), as well as to introduce for the first time a number of characteristics that make it even better than all previously extant currencies.
Another benefit of holding coins yourself, in a hardware wallet or elsewhere, is that you know that you 100% own all of your money. Exchanges are just like banks, in the sense that you trust them to hold your money for you. If they end up losing that money to hackers or stealing it themselves, you’re out of luck. This isn’t just a scary bedtime story — countless cryptocurrencyexchanges have been embezzled or hacked (an enormous percentage, actually), and hundreds of millions of dollars have been lost.
Bitcoin futures have fairly extreme pros and cons to them. Contracts are leveraged in that you're paying a fraction of bitcoin's actual price when you buy futures, giving you a chance to profit off them. However, the contract has an expiration date in the near future. If the price is down when it expires, you can't simply hold and wait to see if it bounces back; you just lose.
Hey Jhon, I haven’t found a crypto yet that is really related to my hobbies – Crossfit and backpacking – but I would actually advise steering clear of investing in things linked too closely to what you’re passionate about; whilst insider knowledge of an industry is really valuable, it’s important to trade without emotion and if your trading a coin that is linked to a great love of yours, that becomes harder.

Over the last half a year, Cboe and CME were not the only entities to have a dig at crypto futures, and Bitcoin was not the only asset underlying these contracts. Since March, UK-based financial institutions were responsible for a steady supply of breaking news in this domain. In March, a British cryptocurrency exchange operator Coinfloor made headlines by announcing the launch of the first physically settled Bitcoin-based futures product.

After participating in the pre sale we diligently tracked the project and saw many signals indicative of tremendous growth potential ahead. Noteworthy metrics included node count/growth, rate of unique transactions and active wallet growth, accelerated community growth, developer interest/participation and institutional partnerships. We continued to invest in the single digits.
In addition, investing in Bitcoin Investment Trust allows investors to keep their holdings in both bitcoin and stocks together in one brokerage account. If you buy bitcoin directly, you typically have to use cryptocurrency exchanges that don't offer regular stock trading, forcing you to have two accounts and deal with the challenges involved in moving money between them.
The Bank for International Settlements, the central banker for global central banks, has warned that cryptocurrencies in the future could become a "threat to financial stability" if regulators aren't vigilant. U.S. regulators appear to be playing catch-up. As of Feb. 6, the cryptocurrency working group put together by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had held a single meeting.
Debit cards, on the other hand, allow you to buy cryptocurrencies available on the platform pretty much instantaneously. Simply by transferring funds from that card to the platform, you can purchase cryptocurrency in an instant. However, debit cards cannot be used to sell crypto, to deposit money in one’s account, or to withdraw money from one’s Coinbase account. On Coinbase, debit cards can be used exclusively to purchase crypto, and even then, only in smaller amounts. With a debit card, the limit is much lower than with a bank account ($1,125). It should be noted, though, that limits are, or can be, increased by purchasing cryptocurrency and spending a particular amount of money in doing so, either from a bank account or a debit card.

Bitcoin fundamentally changes this equation. Unlike even gold, bitcoin is nigh impossible, when stored correctly, for anyone to confiscate without consent. The addresses at which bitcoin values are stored are protected by ‘private keys’, which can be thought of as a password or a key to a lockbox. Without this private key, it is generally impossible to steal the bitcoins held at the public address to which the private key corresponds. So long as you keep this private key secure, your bitcoins are secure.

After two decades online, I’m perplexed. It’s not that I haven’t had a gas of a good time on the Internet. I’ve met great people and even caught a hacker or two. But today, I’m uneasy about this most trendy and oversold community. Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and modems. And the freedom of digital networks will make government more democratic.
It is when the next financial crisis happens and people are locked out of their bank accounts that they will see the power of crypto and bitcoin (think Greece and Cyprus). Outside of precious metals there is no other escape from the corrupt debt based fractional reserve monetary system the world is trapped in -- Also, there are like 3 billion people in the world that are unbanked -- that alone should get someone to take 1 percent of their net worth into crypto -- the risk reward is insane. As far as the criminal activity in bitcoin LOL!!! OMG banks have committed more fraud and crimes and nothing happens to them. Under federal and state laws known as civil forfeiture, police can seize cash or property if they suspect it's tied to an illegal activity even if the property owner isn't charged with a crime -- Supreme Court has upheld this. I am sorry I do not trust governments (who in their right mind would) and am glad there is a place I can hold some of my wealth outside of their reach.
I use to like Tether, it was a way to move money into fiat currency without actually buying the fiat itself. However, today it seems to be yet another form of manipulation. Tether makes up roughly 1% of the cryptocurrency market, yet somehow it is responsible for over half of the bitcoin trading volume each day. Something does not seem right with that.
Bitcoin fundamentally changes this equation. Unlike even gold, bitcoin is nigh impossible, when stored correctly, for anyone to confiscate without consent. The addresses at which bitcoin values are stored are protected by ‘private keys’, which can be thought of as a password or a key to a lockbox. Without this private key, it is generally impossible to steal the bitcoins held at the public address to which the private key corresponds. So long as you keep this private key secure, your bitcoins are secure.
No. 6: Large financial institutions are moving ahead with crypto products: Crypto assets have drawn the attention of institutional investors. Large institutions, such as Goldman Sacs, Fidelity and Blackrock, have started to develop cryptocurrency products and the underlying Blockchain technology. To wit, Goldman is close to launching a Bitcoin trading desk. Fidelity debuted a crypto fund a year ago and is actively building teams for crypto custody and other related services. Blackrock, the world’s largest investment management firm, recently announced plans to invest in the Bitcoin futures market. We expect to see more institutions enter this industry and offer a variety of crypto-based derivative products.